TORONTO, May 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM)
today announced it is now offering ThinkData Works' open data
solution on IBM's platform-as-a-service, Bluemix, to give
application developers access to clean, open data from all levels
of government in Canada.
By building up-to-date and relevant public data directly into
Bluemix, IBM and ThinkData Works' Namara.io are providing
developers, business, and citizens with the resources they need to
innovative and build data-driven applications and services that can
help solve industry problems and address new challenges in ways
previously unavailable.
This new access to high value data is currently leveraged by
businesses of all sizes, from blue chip organizations providing
services to millions of people, to small startups aiming to
innovate within a specific sector, such as healthcare, banking,
transportation and education.
One of the main challenges currently facing open data is that
most government organizations make data available in multiple
locations, on separate portals and in conflicting formats. This
makes it difficult to access in user-friendly ways, often deterring
businesses and developers from working with the data
altogether.
To address this problem, Namara.io aggregates and catalogues all
available data from multiple public sources and organizes them on a
searchable platform. It then provides a common application program
interface (API) to all its open data, making it simple to maintain
content sharing among users and applications.
"We're really pleased to be partnering with IBM because we share
a similar goal," says Bryan Smith,
Co-founder and CEO of ThinkData Works. "By abstracting lower-level
infrastructure components, IBM Bluemix helps developers spend more
time writing the code that will differentiate their app and drive
user adoption and engagement. We believe Namara.io accomplishes
that same goal with respect to open data. It's about making it as
easy as possible to integrate data into an app so developers can
focus on polishing their product, not cleansing data."
Bluemix provides developers with a broad range of IBM,
third-party, and open source APIs and services. The platform lets
clients choose where their applications, data, and other services
reside without compromising on the speed and economics of the
cloud. With over 100 tools and services already available,
developers are able to tap a multitude of services to create
enterprise class cloud applications at consumer scale.
"Organizations that want to fuel innovation are embracing data
as their most critical natural resource and are increasingly
seeking out cloud platforms and services to better manage massive
amounts of information," said Nevil
Knupp, VP Cloud, IBM Canada. "Bluemix provides governments,
startups like ThinkData Works, developers and academia with a
competitive advantage by helping them draw data insights and
provide services at much faster rates to speed time to market,
drive economic growth and transform technology, business and
society."
Created on open technologies that allow developers to build, run
and manage cloud applications and services with more flexibility,
Bluemix enables developers to mix and match different services and
tools that best fit their strategy. IBM launched Bluemix via a
$1 billion investment in 2014; since
then, it has quickly become the largest Cloud Foundry deployment in
the world and a favorite among enterprise developers and startups
alike.
IBM recently announced new Bluemix services to make it easier
for developers to create cloud applications for mobile, Internet of
Things (IoT), supply chain analytics and intelligent infrastructure
solutions. Along with the Namara.io platform by ThinkData Works,
these new services will be added to the over 100 services already
available in the Bluemix catalog, which includes complementary
analytics tools from IBM such as those found in the recently
unveiled IoT Zone and Watson Zone.
For more information about IBM Bluemix, visit
http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/ca/en/paas.html
A Smarter Planet Blog: ThinkData Works CEO talks open data for
developers http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2015/05/33722.html
Media Contacts
For IBM:
Lorianne Mulé
IBM Communications, Canada
(905) 316 – 2197
lorianne@ca.ibm.com
Alexander Aizenberg
IBM Media Relations
aizenberg@us.ibm.com
1 (212) 671-9616
For ThinkData Works:
Bryan Smith
Co-Founder and CEO
416-456-1446
bryan@thinkdataworks.com
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SOURCE IBM